Discovering My Strengths

Someone recently recommended that I pick up the book “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham, so I did. Actually, what I’m reading is the newer, updated “StrengthsFinder 2.0″ by Tom Rath. I quickly read through the first 30 or so pages so I could get to the actual online-assessment. I don’t know why this idea seems so amazing and original to me, because it just makes so much sense.

At its fundamentally flawed core, the aim of almost any learning program is to help us become who we are not. If you don’t have talent with numbers, you’re still forced to spend time in that area to attain a degree. If you’re not very empathic, you get sent to a course designed to infuse empathy into your personality. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to our shortcomings than to our strengths.

I just completed the online-assessment a few minutes ago and have read through the profile it generated and I’d say it’s pretty accurate. For those who don’t care about all the details, here are my top-five themes:

Belief

Strategic

Connectedness

Self-Assurance

Ideation

A quick skim of what each of those means is very interesting and I look forward to completing the book and learning more about how to “work in my strengths” both at the office and in other areas of my life.